Fork Puzzles: Challenging Level

By the numbers

fork puzzles at challenging level: the numbers

There are 145,427 fork puzzles at challenging level, solved 449,670,326 times in total. The median rating is 1772.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 83,120Endgame tactics · 53,396Sacrifice · 28,490Attraction · 23,113Exposed king · 14,910Checkmate · 9,698Opening tactics · 8,911Deflection · 7,583

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 5,466French Defence · 1,947Caro–Kann Defence · 1,881Queen's Pawn Game · 1,869Italian Game · 1,830Scandinavian Defense · 1,267Queen's Gambit Declined · 1,200English Opening · 1,149

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical fork solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 fork puzzles at challenging level (1.4% of all 145,427).

30.4% need 2 solver moves, 54.8% need 3 solver moves, 12.4% need 4 solver moves, 2.4% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 1754 for the shortest solutions, 1895 for the longest.

38.5% open with a queen move. The first move captures in 45.8% and gives check in 62.4%; 6.2% end in checkmate, 31.8% involve a sacrifice, 51.8% have White to move.

How many moves does the solver need?

Which piece plays the key move?

What does the solver win?

Material balance along the whole line, counting every capture by both sides (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9):

How much is left on the board?

How it is counted: every puzzle in the sample is replayed move by move with a chess rules engine. A sacrifice means a piece that is captured on the very next ply and was worth more than what it captured itself (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9). Sample of 2,000 puzzles. Percentages are shares of the sample.

Where it happens

Where the key move lands

Where the solver’s first move ends, drawn from their own side (rank 1 is their back rank). Busiest squares: d5 (5.6%), f7 (5.6%), f6 (4.9%), e6 (4.8%), f5 (3.8%).

Counted from the same 2,000-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.